Utah Finders Guide

To see a document with clickable links, go here

Utah finders guide.
Joel Campbell
Associate Professor
Brigham Young University
Department of Communications
Twitter: @joelcampbell
Facebook: joelcampbell
E-mail: foiguy@gmail.com

Address finder, See stupid Google tricks
http://www.whitepages.com
http://www.switchboard.com
http://www.zabasearch.com/
Birth records, only available to close relatives until after 100 years.
Budget records for Utah state agencies, http://www.utah.gov/transparency/index.html
Most government agencies post budgets online.
Banks and financial institutions (Utah), http://www.dfi.utah.gov/Default.htm Go to home
page and select the Financial Institutions button and then select different lists of banks.
Business records (see also corporation records)
--Publically traded company info, www.sec.gov/edgar
--
Campaign contributions,
www.opensecrets.org for federal candidates
http://www.utahsright.com/h_political.php and www.followthemoney.org for state candidates.
Federal Election Commission, http://www.fecinfo.org
Campus crime, http://ope.ed.gov/security/,
Childcare citations, http://www.utahsright.com/h_childcare.php
Cities, http://www.ulct.org/ulct/
Corporation records, Business Entity Search, https://secure.utah.gov/bes/action
Contracts, Federal contracts, http://www.fedspending.org/
Check individual government Websites. May have to GRAMA.
Counties,
Courts
Utah Courts http://xchange.utcourts.gov/casesearch/FormLogin Must subscribe
Federal courts, http://www.uscourts.gov/courtlinks/
Utah District court charges, 1997-2009, http://www.utahsright.com/h_charges.php
Crime reports, www.crimereports.com
FBI crime statistics, http://www.utahsright.com/stats.php?chart=crime
Bureau of Criminal Identification, http://publicsafety.utah.gov/bci/crimestatistics.html
Federal crime data analysis, Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse http://trac.syr.edu/
Death certificates, only available to close relatives until after 100 years.
Demographic and Census information, www.census.gov http://governor.utah.gov/dea/
http://www.utahsright.com/stats.php?chart=census
Divorce records, http://www.utahsright.com/h_divorce.php
Education reporting, UJET, http://education.byu.edu/ujet/
Environmental reporting, Society of Environmental Reporters, www.sej.org
Experts, ProfNet, requires registration www.prnewswire.com (register for PRNewswire for journalists)
FBI records
Federal FOIA request, online letter generator, http://www.rcfp.org/foialetter/index.php
Freedom of information groups, resources
See Utah Open Government Guide at Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
http://www.rcfp.org/ogg/index.php?op=browse&state=UT
Utah Foundation for Open Government, http://www.ufog.net/
Society of Professional Journalists, http://www.spj.org/foi.asp
Freedom of Information Center (University of Missouri-Columbia Many helpful resources and links, http://nfoic.org/foi-center/index.html
National Coalition for Open Government, www.nfoic.org
Genealogy links, backgrounding people and families.
http://class.famhist.us/
www.ancestry.com
http://www.cyndislist.com/
www.footnote.com
www.familysearch.org
Government Access and Management Act
GRAMA request generator, Online state records request letter generator, www.splc.org
Utah Attorney General’s GRAMA page
http://www.attorneygeneral.utah.gov/grama.html
Internet address finder, http://www.iaf.net/
Legal notices, www.utahlegals.com
Legislature, www.le.state.ut.us
Lobbyists, https://secure.utah.gov/lobbyist/lobbysearch
Marriage records,
Medical Examiner records, http://www.utahsright.com/stats.php?chart=mex
Newspapers, www.utahpress.com
Newspaper archives,

Historic Deseret News, http://archive.deseretnews.com/historic
Utah Digital Newspapers, http://digitalnewspapers.org/
Non-profit and charitable organizations, www.guidestar.org
People finder, type name and address in Google
Professional license records, https://secure.utah.gov/llv/llv
Public Open meetings law, http://www.le.state.ut.us/~code/TITLE52/52_04.htm or in PDF
format from Utah League http://www.ulct.org/ulct/docs/OPEN_AND_PUBLIC_MEETINGS09.pdf
Public and open meeting notices, can subscribe by e-mail, http://www.utah.gov/pmn/index.html
Real Estate, Disciplinary Actions and Sanctions for Division of Real Estate
http://www.utahsright.com/h_realestate.php
Religion reporting, Religion News Writers Association, http://www.rna.org/
Restaurant inspections, public records. Here is a database compiled Salt Lake County records
http://www.utahsright.com/h_inspections.php
Salaries, http://www.utahsright.com/h_salaries.php
Searches, Journalism-oriented sites.
Powerreporting
http://www.Powerreporting.com

New York Times Navigator – internal search engine for NYT reporters.
http://tech.nytimes.com/top/news/technology/cybertimesnavigator/index.html
Reporter’s Desktop
http://www.reporter.org/desktop/
Search systems
A very useful online database that lists both pay and free sites in Utah government.
http://www.searchsystems.net/list.php?nid=53&page=1 Very slow if you are not a paid subscriber.
State government, www.utah.gov
Stupid Google tricks, http://www.sreetips.com/google.html
School test data, U-Pass and AYP http://u-pass.schools.utah.gov/u-passweb/
Story ideas
Investigate Reporters and Editors, http://www.ire.org/extraextra/
Al’s Morning Meeting, http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=2
SPJ Open Doors, http://www.spj.org/opendoors7.asp
Student press rights, Student Press Law Center, www.splc.org
Unclaimed property, http://www.utahsright.com/h_properties.php
Utah state employee directory, http://web.state.ut.us/phone.htm
Web Domain search, http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/index.jsp